


Sin Eater

by hellkitty



Category: Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 04:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/630480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bit of pre-war headcanon for Chromedome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sin Eater

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NK (NKfloofiepoof)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NKfloofiepoof/gifts).



One day, Chromedome thought, he’d have had enough. One day soon. One day he’d no longer be able to convince himself that the benefit for others was more than the pain he caused himself. That day was soon, but not—quite—yet.   
  
So do it, he told the reflection in the mirror. This is what you do, what they pay you to do. Do it.   
  
You wanted this. You wanted to become this.  
  
His orange optics shuttered briefly, before he stepped across the threshold into the surgical suite. For the millionth time, he was glad for the mask that covered any facial expression he might have had—even the entire lack of one. It was hard to look compassionate when you were numb.   
  
“All right,” he said, his voice, he was almost glad to hear, its usual briskness. “So we’re here for a memory extraction, yes?”   
  
The mech seated on the slab, his own face taut with worry, nodded. “Couple of…things I’d rather forget.”   
  
“That’s what we’re here for,” Chromedome said, smoothly, moving around behind the mech, pausing to rest one hand on the other’s shoulder. From here, he couldn’t see the Autobrand, from here he was just a mech, huddled on a berth, wanting a mnemosurgeon to take away his pain.   
  
“Hey, uh.” The mech turned his head, just as Chromedome was about to effect incision. He had to jerk his hand back, the long filament needless glinting in the light. “You’ll only take those, right? I mean, I’ve heard about stuff going wrong here. There’s a lot I don’t want to forget. You know.” He gave a sheepish grimace, as though suddenly embarrassed for questioning the mech who was about to muck around in his mnemocortex.   
  
Chromedome shrugged easily. He’s heard that chain of questions before, and who wouldn’t understand that fear? “We don’t take anything other than the memories we’re supposed to take. That’s why you do that recording for yourself before the procedure.” It was a just in case: all mnemosurgery patients were required to record their consent and the specifications of the surgery and then got a hard file of it.   
  
“But how do you—?”   
  
“Timestamps for one,” Chromedome said, turning the other’s helm back away from him. “For another, there’s a reason we sign that confidentiality agreement.” Because they lived the memories they took: they didn’t just suck out random memories. It was what wore him down, wore everyone down, like beating a slow, steady path down a road toward a relinquishment clinic.   
  
The shoulder actuators released, the helm dropping forward, giving him clear broad access to the cortical cable. He moved in, his right hand’s needles extending toward it, bracing himself for the blast of the first firewalls and then…whatever horrors lay beyond.   
  
“…thank you,” the mech mumbled, even as he winced at the small pinch.   
  
“Don’t mention it,” Chromedome said, optics dimming as he sank into the gory sea of memories. It was one way to keep the Autobots functional, he supposed—to eradicate memories that disturbed them, made them ineffective: memories of what they’d seen and sometimes, what they’d done.   
  
He didn’t ask himself if it was right or wrong. He kept himself busy so that he wouldn’t have time to ask.   
  
oOoOoOo  
  
Rewind’s face, over his, optics tilted with concern. “Another memory purge?” he asked, though he didn’t need to ask, really. He knew the signs by now, knew the symptoms—the shaking limbs, the mumbling, the difficulty waking up.   
  
Chromedome nodded, the world still resolving around him. Their hab suite of the Lost Light, not the Mnemosurgicenter. Now, and not way back then. Dark and quiet save for the humming of the ship’s powerful engines, not too bright surgical white and the bustle of too many mechs trying to forget who they were.   
  
“Old one,” he said, his voice gravelly, his vocalizer’s charge expended.   
“Before we met.”   
  
“Oh,” Rewind said. He settled back on his hip, one hand light on the other’s chassis. “I wasn’t trying to, you know, accuse you of anything.”   
  
Chromedome shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Probably deserve it.” In these moments, he could admit that much, he could acknowledge that he’d interfaced too many times, taken too many memories from others—only horrible things, dark deeds, nightmares, atrocities. His memory core was a horror show of a hundred thousand war-ravaged mind.   
  
“Don’t talk like that!” Rewind said. “I just worry.”  
  
“Yeah.” Chromedome rolled onto his side, curling his frame into a ball. He tugged Rewind down with him, wrapping an arm over the smaller mech’s chassis, pressing his back against his own chestplate. Rewind wriggled back, bending his helm forward, and for a klik Chromedome was back in the surgicenter, staring at a cortical line, wondering what horrors awaited there for him. He squeezed his optics shut, pushing the thought from his mind, resting his crest against the other’s helm rim. “Me too.”


End file.
